


Temporal Anomaly

by fabrega



Category: Warehouse 13, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time isn't working right in the town of Night Vale, and Pete and Myka are sent to investigate. They may be a little out of their league.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temporal Anomaly

**Author's Note:**

> Set after WtNV #16: The Phone Call. Thanks to Alex for the initial read.
> 
> This fic's weather is [Tunnel Clones - In the City](https://myspace.com/tunnelclones/music/song/in-the-city-26263770-26064955).

Pete and Myka are eating breakfast when Artie comes in and drops a pair of surprisingly-thin folders in front of them. "We've got a ping," he tells them as he grabs a muffin, "And it's a doozy."

At "doozy," Pete and Myka exchange a look. Artie's been at this long enough that very little fazes him anymore. It's enough to make Myka put down her spoon and pick up her folder.

Artie continues, "We've received a report of a town where time...isn't working right."

Myka's eyes flicker up from her folder to Artie. "Not working right how?"

"Yeah," Pete chimes in, "I thought time was a pretty constant thing."

"You'd think so," Artie agrees, "But we've got some pretty solid documentation that less time passed there last week than did everywhere else in the country--before you ask, yes, a week is a specific unit of time, and no, I don't know how that works."

"You said it's documented. How do you document something like that, and how do we end up with the evidence?" Pete asks.

"You'll have to ask the scientist who did the documenting," Artie says, gesturing at Pete's folder. "And as for how, we're monitoring a lot of things, not just the news." He waves his hands in a vague, yet somehow menacing way. "You'll want to read your briefings on this one. It's...it's really something."

*

They fly into the nearest airport, but it's still several hours' drive from their destination, the tiny desert town of Night Vale. Myka drives the rental car. Pete doesn't bother opening his briefing folder until they're less than an hour out. When he does, he proceeds to make a lot of disbelieving faces. "Myks," he says finally, "If this time thing is really happening, why is only one guy noticing? It sounds like he even took his evidence to the authorities, and we're the only ones doing anything about it. Is it possible he's just crazy?"

"Did you see the part where he mentions the invisible teleporting clock tower?" Myka asks.

"See, of all the things in here," Pete waves the folder for emphasis, "That's the one I got the feeling _he_ didn't believe. I just--I keep trying to think of anything weirder we've run into, artifact-wise, and I'm not coming up with anything."

"It's only the weirdest thing until we run into something weirder," Myka replies, shrugging. It's tough to argue with that.

Without warning, the car's radio switches itself on. A deep, soothing voice issues from the speakers, mid-sentence: "--are _not real_. Additionally, the City Council would like to inform you about the situation developing at the abandoned missile silo. You do not need to worry about the situation developing at the abandoned missile silo. And now, a word from our sponsors." The car is filled with didgeridoo music. The same deep voice seems to be chanting over the top of the music, strange syllables that somehow eventually resolve them into the word MCDONALDS repeated over and over again.

Pete looks over at Myka. "...this is weird, right?"

The droning stops, and the voice launches back into talk radio as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "Now, the Night Vale community calendar."

Pete and Myka exchange another look. It is entirely possible that Night Vale is going to be a lot stranger than they had thought. Myka presses the power button on the radio console several times, to no effect. The one on the steering wheel doesn't seem to work either, and the volume controls will only adjust the sound louder.

"And now, traffic," the radio says, having finished with the community calendar.

"Did he just say that Wednesday was cancelled 'again'?" Pete asks, still digesting the last segment. Myka shushes him.

"The highway patrol would like to remind you: look twice, save a life; motorcycles are everywhere. Look behind you. Now look again--there's a motorcycle there _right now_. Your side mirrors are clear--or are they?! You're surrounded by motorcycles. They pull in close to your car; you don't dare move the wheel. The air fills with the menacing roar of their engines. Where are they escorting you? What do they want from you? You think, as they force you off the road into the vast, unknowable desert, that you may never know. You wish you'd looked twice--motorcycles are everywhere. The life you save just might be your own."

Myka glances over at Pete, who appears to be actively scanning the road around the rental car for motorcycles. She gives him a look, but he just shrugs at her, indicating that surely it can't hurt.

"And now," the radio says, "The weather!"

It's not the weather; it's a hip hop track with a catchy brass hook. Pete tries the power button again, but still can't switch it off. If they'd had any doubts about the reports in Artie's folders, this is enough to make them believe.

*

When the strange radio show finishes, the radio allows itself to be shut off--but around that time, the GPS has a meltdown instead, somehow shouting at them that they need to turn left, _left_ , LEFT, _LEFT_. Pete jokes that the rental car is haunted. Luckily, they have just passed the Night Vale city limits, so they pull off at a gas station to ask for directions.

Myka tells the man behind the counter that they're looking for the science lab downtown and begins to pulls her smart phone out to show the man the address. At the mention of the lab, the man lights up.

"Are you looking for Carlos?" the man asks.

"Yes," Myka says cautiously, "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no particular reason. You'll really like him. Everyone does." He proceeds to give them reasonable--if a little strange--landmark-based directions to their destination.

They've already experienced a fair bit of strangeness themselves, but before they leave, Pete has to ask: "Have you noticed anything weird around town lately? Maybe with your clocks or your radios?"

Pete does not see the man pause and scratch his chin thoughtfully, because his attention is drawn to the hooded figure on the sidewalk outside, but after a moment the man answers, "No, I can't really think of anything."

*

"Is it possible that we could just bag this whole town?" Pete is saying as they pull up at the lab. They've been around the block twice--not because they couldn't find the lab, but because they wanted to confirm that they were, in fact, being followed by a man in a ski mask and several bizarre-looking Boy Scouts. The people tailing them don't seem actively threatening, though, so they park the rental and go inside and seek out the man they've come all this way to see.

When they find his mostly-office-but-also-lab, Pete knocks on the open door and calls, "Carlos?"

"In here!" a voice returns. Pete and Myka venture into the office and find a man, presumably Carlos, tucked in behind a workbench with something like fifteen different clocks in various states of disassembly on it. He is wearing a white lab coat and holding two different screwdrivers. His hair is immaculate. "Hello," the man says, staring at them suspiciously, "Can I help you?"

"Are you Carlos?" Pete asks. When the man confirms, Pete walks further into the office and shows his badge. "I'm Agent Pete Lattimer, Secret Service, and this is Agent Myka Bering. We're here about a report you filed a few weeks ago."

Carlos blinks in surprise. "Secret Service? Does the President send you guys to check in on all the scientists with NSF funding?" He chuckles to himself, obviously amused with his own joke, although his smile fades a little when neither of the agents responds. "I assume you're talking about my findings about Night Vale's temporal anomaly?"

"You said time runs differently in Night Vale," Myka confirms. 

Carlos lights up and begins explaining things very quickly. A lot of it was already in their briefing folders, so Pete tunes out a little bit, but his attention snaps back when Carlos begins gesturing with the screwdrivers he's holding at the dismantled clocks on the table in front of him. "And none of them are _real_ , which is the strangest part. They all seem to be running, but there should be machinery inside, gears and cogs and crystals or electronics. Instead there's just...this." He pokes at one of the clocks, and something grey begins to ooze slowly out of it.

Myka squints closely at the grey lump. "Is that hair?" Carlos nods, prodding the clock again. More of the grey substance oozes out. "And all these clocks, they're all the same?" Myka asks.

Carlos shakes his head. "No, some of them are just empty. I don't know if that's better or worse than them all having ooze and hair and teeth."

"Teeth?" Pete says, clenching his own and taking a deep breath through them.

"It's odd, to say the least," Carlos agrees. "There doesn't seem to be any pattern or reasoning behind which ones are empty and which ones are...full. These six were all bought at the same time at the same store, and two of them were empty. This one, from the elementary school--"

"What about that one?" Pete interrupts, pointing to a somehow ominous-looking desk clock off to one side of the table. It's a sort of matte black that makes it look like it's absorbing the light that shines on it.

"That one came from the radio station," Carlos says, unable to stop a smile from flashing across his face. It's gone with a shake of his head, though, and he goes on to explain: "As far as I know, it's the oldest one here. Cecil says it's got some kind of special connection to the town, but his explanation was a little tough to follow. Something about a ceremony and soft meat crowns? Half the time, I think he's putting me on."

"Who is Cecil?" Myka asks. She doesn't remember that name from her file.

"He works at the community radio station," Carlos explains, seeming oddly embarrassed. "He's a host there." He looks at his watch (which is weird, all things considered) and continues, "Oh, you may have heard him on your way into town."

"Probably," Pete says, "The radio just switched on, and there he was."

Carlos shrugs. "I asked one of the locals about that once, and she said that the show is 'compulsory listening' for anyone with a radio." He points at a beat-up radio sitting on a shelf behind him. "I thought this one was broken, but it turns on for Cecil. I probably ought to throw it out, but I _do_ like listening to him." Carlos smiles again, this time for a little bit longer.

Pete and Myka exchange a look. "So, anyway," Myka says, trying to get back to the task at hand, "What I'm hearing is that you have a temporal anomaly and a clock with a mysterious past. What do you think, Pete? Bag it?"

"Worth a try," Pete agrees. Myka pulls out a large artifact bag, and Pete picks up the clock.

*

"I'm sorry, _what?!_ " Artie's voice issues shrilly from the Farnsworth.

Pete repeats himself into the machine. "I said, I think we're a little out of our league here, Artie. I don't think that this is something we can just--"

"No, no, before that. Did you say you tried to bag the artifact, but _the bag caught fire_?" Artie says, sounding incredulous.

"Oh, yeah, that. I've never seen it do that before," Pete says. He looks up from the Farnsworth, watches yet another firefighter rush into the lab. The fire isn't a threat anymore, wasn't ever really--Myka had dropped the bag when it ignited, and they'd managed to get the flames out through a combination of stomping and a fire extinguisher--but that doesn't seem to be stopping the emergency crews.

"In all my years here, I've never seen it either. It worries me, Pete," Artie says. His brow wrinkles, and his face drifts out of frame as he talks to someone else in the room. "Okay, we're going to do a little research on our end. We'll let you know when we know more. You two, be careful!"

Pete tucks the Farnsworth into his pocket and turns to Myka. "It doesn't sound good." Carlos is standing nearby, holding the ominous desk clock down in front of him, his arms locked at the elbow. The clock is completely unscathed by the incident, but Carlos is obviously nervous. "Maybe we should go talk to this guy at the radio station, see what he knows about this clock."

Carlos takes some convincing, but they end up at the Night Vale Community Radio station building. "Cecil should still be here," Carlos says, hefting the clock from one hand to the other nervously.

They're escorted into the station by an intern--they can tell that she's an intern because she is wearing a pin-on nametag that simply says INTERN. She takes them into a big, dark studio full of old-timey radio equipment. At a desk in the middle of the room, a man is hunched in front of a microphone, writing something.

"Cecil, you have visitors," the intern calls across the room before carefully making her exit.

Cecil looks up at his name, and seems to blanch at the sight of them. "Carlos!" he says, standing so quickly that the papers on his desk fly everywhere. "What are you doing here?"

"Cecil, we need to talk to you about this clock," Carlos says. All of the nervous warmth is gone from his voice, and Pete raises an eyebrow at Myka.

"You said you needed it for science, I hope it was okay to give it to you--" Cecil begins.

Pete cuts him off. "It's fine, we just need to know where it came from, what its story is. We think it might be related to the temporal anomalies Carlos here has been seeing." 

Cecil brightens. "Oh, are you scientists as well? I find science _fascinating_." He is talking to Pete and Myka, but he can't seem to take his eyes off Carlos.

Myka smiles a little and flashes her badge at him, introducing herself and Pete. Cecil seems less fazed by their being government agents than Carlos had been; he proceeds to sheepishly tell them the clock's back-story. As a teenager, many years ago, he and a couple of friends had managed to enter the Night Vale clock tower and had taken the clock Carlos is holding as proof of their deed.

When he hears the words "clock tower", Carlos doesn't look surprised, but he does set the clock he's holding _very carefully_ down on a nearby desk.

"Wait," Pete says, "The clock tower? The invisible, teleporting clock tower?"

*

This is how Pete and Myka end up standing in the middle of a big, empty parking lot, waiting. Myka thumbs her phone and plays back the instructions they'd received from Cecil--he'd panicked about them having unsanctioned writing utensils, so an audio file would have to suffice.

"First, there's no sound--not 'no sound from the clock tower', but 'no sound at all'. It kind of...fades away? And then there's a sound like a train, but a helicopter?" (In the background of the recording, Pete can be heard saying, "That doesn't even make sense.") "Then, more nothing, and a sort of shimmer, like when you look out across a hot road in the middle of a desert on the hottest day of the year. Then, you'll hear the clock tower's bells, and the door will be there for about fifteen seconds. It may be hovering slightly, but not too high. Once you're in, you should teleport with it."

"An invisible, teleporting clock tower," Pete repeats. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Myka gives him a stern look.

Pete grins back at her. "See, because it's invisible--"

"I get it, Pete." Myka squints out across the parking lot. They've placed the mysterious clock in the middle of the lot as a kind of lure for the clock tower. Its location is apparently random, but one of the things that Cecil had told them during the slightly rambling conversation that led to their being in this parking lot is that the few times he's taken the clock tower outdoors in the years since he had acquired it, the clock tower has shown up nearby. 

Carlos had said, dubiously, that it almost sounded like the clock tower was looking for it. Cecil had not disagreed.

"I wonder how long we're going to have to wait," Myka says.

"If you'd asked me yesterday how long I'd have to stand in a parking lot waiting for an invisible, teleporting clock tower to show up, I would have guessed 'forever'," Pete offers. 

Myka finally cracks a smile. "So, do we have a plan for when we get inside?"

Pete shrugs. "I was kind of hoping that Artie would have gotten back to us by now. We can't really make a plan when we have no idea what's actually going to be in there."

"Oh, it's probably just like all the other invisible, teleporting clock towers." Myka's grin has turned a little goofy. It's a really fun phrase to say.

They stand for a while longer, staring out across the parking lot, comfortably silent. High above them, helicopters of several different colors circle lazily; Cecil's broadcast on the way into town had said not to worry about them. After a little while, Myka says: "So, when do you think that Cecil and Carlos are going to realize that they like each other?"

"Oh, you noticed that too? I may have said something to Cecil about it at the radio station while you and Carlos were figuring out the directions on how to get here," Pete says, radiating innocence. "I've never seen a man blush so hard."

"Pete!" Myka hits him in the arm, but not too hard. Then they notice the looming quiet.

There is a loud noise.

There is a shimmer, and a sound of bells.

Pete dashes for the clock they'd set in the middle of the parking lot. The door to the clock tower appears, just barely visible, about five feet above the ground. Myka is close enough to make it up and into the clock tower with plenty of time to spare, but Pete has to really move, tossing the clock up to Myka and scrambling up into the open doorway.

They close the door, and there is a low, loud noise, like a gong or a bell, unspeakably loud, feel-it-in-your-bone-marrow loud, and both agents collapse to the floor.

Then, there is blackness.

*

Myka awakens to the sound of the Farnsworth. She sits up, groaning a little, and shakes Pete, who is on the floor next to her. When she opens the Farnsworth, she is greeted by Artie. He looks worried.

"Where have you been?!" Artie snaps. "We've been trying to call you for an hour and a half!" He squints at her through the tiny screen. "Where _are_ you?"

Pete sits up, rubbing his head as he leans into view. "I'm not sure you'd believe us if we told you."

From off-screen, they hear another voice say, "Try me."

"Is that Mrs. Frederic?" Myka asks. If she's involved, the situation can't be good.

"It is indeed," Mrs. Frederic replies, taking the Farnsworth from Artie. "I hear that you two have been sent to Night Vale."

"Yes, they're having some issues with time here, and Artie wanted us to track it down," Myka explains. "We've made some progress, tracked it as far as the town's invisible, teleporting clock tower."

Mrs. Frederic sighs. "There's nothing in Night Vale that needs the attention of Warehouse agents."

"See, that's sort of the opposite of what we're seeing here," Pete says, making a skeptical face. "It kind of feels like _everything_ here needs a Warehouse agent's attention."

"The Regents are aware of the... situation in Night Vale. We've got quite a file on it." Mrs. Frederic holds the Farnsworth out in front of her, so that Pete and Myka can see the table behind her. There's a stack of folders sitting on it, each bulging overfull, the pile over a foot tall.

Pete lets out of a low whistle. Myka boggles for a moment, then asks, "Why didn't the briefing we were given include any of that information?"

Artie grabs the Farnsworth, angles it at his face, and frowns directly into it. "It wasn't included because it was locked in a secret vault that I didn't know about until Mrs. Frederic arrived here this afternoon."

Mrs. Frederic pulls the Farnsworth back away from Artie. Her voice is even more stern than usual "Wherever you are, you are to leave Night Vale as soon as possible."

Myka begins, "But--"

"No buts!" Mrs. Frederic cuts her off. "There are very few places outside of Warehouse jurisdiction, and you two are in one of them. Get back here before you cause too much trouble." The agents nod at her, and the connection cuts off. 

Now they get a chance to look around. Myka's not sure what she expected the interior of a clock tower to look like, but this definitely isn't it. They're in a large room, seemingly larger than the exterior of the structure they'd managed to see should be able to hold. It's well-lit, but everything in the room--the walls, the floor, the furniture, the fixtures, even somehow the lighting itself--is the same shade of matte black as the clock they brought here, making it seem a lot darker than it is. In the middle of the room, there is a long table. There is a rectangular chair at each end of the table: one is completely empty, and the other has a tan jacket draped over the back of it. On the table itself are a line of clocks, each about the same size as the one Cecil had given to Carlos. From left to right, the clocks grow more complicated and more ornate, obviously a progression of some sort. There is a spot to the right of the middle of the table that is empty; the last spot on the right contains a small, pulsing mass of wood and gears.

Pete walks over to the table and peers at the little blob. "Does this one look unhealthy to you?" he asks Myka. "I don't know why I think that, but it definitely feels like something's wrong with it."

Myka looks down at the clock they'd brought. It is sitting on the floor where they'd left it, and it is softly humming. She carefully picks it up and brings it closer to the table; the humming grows louder as the other clocks join in.

"Try putting it in the empty spot on the table," Pete offers.

Myka stops. "Do you think we should just leave it alone? Mrs. Frederic _did_ say not to mess with anything else."

"No, Mrs. Frederic said to leave as soon as we could and not cause too much trouble. Who gets to decide what's 'too much'?"

"Probably Mrs. Frederic," Myka mutters, glaring at him, but she walks closer to the table. The humming gets even louder, the notes splitting apart to form a complex harmony. The empty spot on the table seems to rise slightly, as though it's ready to accept the missing clock. The humming stops when Myka sets the clock down, and if they didn't know better, they'd think the little blobby clock lets out a small, happy sigh.

Then there's a voice behind them, a calm voice, a man's voice. He says _thank you_ and walks around the end of the table and picks his jacket up off the chair, and then time and memory go a little hazy.

*

The next thing Pete and Myka are aware of, they are seated in the rental car. They're not driving, thankfully, because that would be a terrifying time to regain your memory, but they're buckled in and apparently ready to head out of town. Myka starts to ask a question, any question, all the questions, but Pete just shakes his head. In Night Vale, there probably aren't any answers.

They stop at the science lab on the way out of town. Carlos is in his lab, and he listens excitedly as Pete and Myka try to describe what they'd seen and done in the clock tower. He promises to let them know if his temporal readings change over the next few weeks. "I'm just glad to have met somebody else who doesn't think that everything here is normal. I was beginning to think that _I_ was the crazy one."

"Nope, definitely not crazy," Pete says. "Not unless we all are!"

They all laugh, uneasy laughter.

***

"You should talk to Cecil," Myka says to Carlos before they leave. "He obviously likes you, and it seems like you like him. What's the worst that could happen?"

He blinks at her, wide-eyed, and chuckles nervously. "I know you haven't spent that much time here, but surely that's a question you know better than to ask at this point."

"At least think about it," Myka says. Pete's got her by the arm and is pulling her towards the door. "Trust me, when everything else is this weird, you might as well be happy if you can."

Carlos agrees to nothing, just stares after them as they leave. Behind him, the radio switches on, pouring Cecil's voice out into the room, and Carlos smiles.


End file.
